NegaNitrine
by Milkbonez
Summary: After being attacked by the legendary Giratina, Nitrine's quest for revenge puts the fate of three worlds in jeopardy.
1. Best Served Cold

**I do not own any official Pokemon or NiGHTS characters; they are copyrighted to their respective franchises and whatnot. OC's that are not my own are used with permission.**

He landed hard on the rocky ground with a groan. Blinking up at the dark plothole as it snapped shut above him, he giggled, musing, "Why didn't I see that coming?" Well, some part of him did see it coming; Shirona was annoyed and got rid of the problem in that Shirona way of hers. "When I get back, I'll go get my own root beer float. But where am I...?"

Nitrine's breath drifted white as he sat up, looking around. Most of what he saw was pure whiteness, except for the stony wall off to his left. He noticed the reflective surface of a tiny patch of ice, and all his muscles shivered. Rather than going into the thick mist around him, he floated upwards and felt along the rocky wall with his hands, flinching when he touched ice. The white haze seemed to fade the further he ascended; he had climbed on top of a large, pointed boulder when the clouds thinned enough to let some sunshine through. Nitrine cast a glance over his shoulder. He couldn't make out much, but he could tell he was at the top of a mountain. "What a bitch."

Hovering forward, he came upon a small valley—rather, it was like a giant bowl on the mountaintop. The entrance to a cave was off to one side, and in front of it was a huge, flat space in the ground, like a great stage. On either side of it were pillars, shortened and shaped into spears by centuries of exposure to the elements. What caught his eye was the murky lake at the center of the flat stage, its waters swirling like a gentle whirlpool. Nitrine floated towards the pillars for closer inspection, but when something began to rise out of the water, he darted behind one to hide and see what it was.

The thing was as huge as Gillwing, with six relatively short, thick legs to accommodate its long body. It was pale gray in color, with black and red stripes on the underside of its neck and gold half-rings on its nape. Although its gaseous black wings didn't seem as though they should have been able to carry it, they let the dragon of legend land easily beside the lake. A growl sounded from within its chest as its red eyes scanned the area.

Nitrine withdrew his head behind his pillar, and the stomping of the beast's advance shook the ground. He took to the air just as the black and gold reptilian head snapped its jaws at him from around the pillar—it was so much more giant up close. A blue orb of energy formed in its mouth, prompting the nightmare creature to bolt away towards the open space above the lake; the aura ball crumbled the base of another pillar and nearly tipped it on top of Nitrine, who endeavored to keep it from crushing him even with his extraordinary strength.

The monster was airborne now and flying at top speed towards Nitrine with both front legs extended. Its claws glowed with a dark, ghastly essence. He dropped himself about ten feet when it was too close to brake its speed, resulting in it crashing head-first through the stone pillar that he held above his head. Closing his eyes tightly to avoid the chunks of rock blinding him, he did not watch the cloaked claws whizz past him on either side.

Dazed from the collision, it gave its head a shake before pivoting its neck to see Nitrine still standing on air, now armed with his crotch cannon. He taunted, "You wanna dance? I'm right here." With a shrill, frustrated roar, it climbed to its six feet and disappeared before the maren's very eyes. His body tensed, and he twisted all about while hoping he wouldn't have to fight an invisible foe. The thought occurred to him that simply warping back to his home in Nightmare was probably a better idea than duking it out with some dragon on top of a mountain. The very moment he disarmed himself, he heard a deep snarl from behind; without bothering to look back at the taloned paw coming down to slash, he wriggled into a warp portal—a second too late.

* * *

"It hurrrts!"

"Please try to relax. It won't be as bad if you aren't so tense."

"But it really hurts!" Nitrine whimpered through his tears. He was sitting at the edge of his bed, topless so that Lucent could tend his laceration. The dragon had ripped through both his favorite hoodie and his T shirt and left an open, severe gash that ran diagonally across his back.

"It's fairly large; it probably will sting a bit." Once he fetched a bandage, Lucent cleaned the area of blood to inspect it. The edges of the skin were actually black, and he winced at the thought of being gashed with flaming claws. He applied pressure with a thick cloth to stem the bleeding, his brother nearly jumping off the bed at the sensation, before beginning to wrap the bandages around Nitrine's torso. "Your wound is pretty serious and will probably need some time to heal. Take it easy for the next couple weeks or so, all right? In the meantime, I'll patch up your hoodie for you."

The other nodded with a sniffle, offering a little smile. "All right. Thanks, Lucie. If I stay home, I might actually get started on those art projects I've wanted to do."

Lucent gave his knee an affectionate squeeze before injecting, "Sometimes I wonder how you put up with that Shirona."

Nitrine shrugged slightly as to not disturb his wound. He had relayed to Lucent bits and pieces of the day's events through screams of agony once he had gotten home "She can be a bit rough sometimes," he admitted.

"I'm going to go work on your hoodie; do you need me to get you anything?"

"Nah, I'm okay for now."

As his blue-eyed brother exited the room, Nitrine gingerly levitated to his dresser to fetch another T shirt, accompanied by that stinging sensation. His shirt drawer was messier than what he normally tolerated, but he was in no mood to organize it at present. Bit by bit he pulled the tan shirt over his shoulders, reflecting irritatedly upon his injury. What had he done to deserve the dragon's anger? It simply rose up from the dark waters of its lake to attack him without much reason. Moreover, it was Shirona's fault that he had been transported to the dragon's mountain dwelling place to begin with.

As he thought, the feeling in his back progressed to more of a burn; though he was unaware of it, his brown eyes started to glow blue, except for that one blue spot in the corner, which had swapped to brown. Oh, how he would give that woman such a piece of his mind! Right after he jammed the six-legged beast's head onto a stake. The burning intensified, and he gave a soft cry of pain as he turned to float out the door, eyes returning to their natural color. First, a couple weeks of Lucent's comfort; then, payback.


	2. Just Gonna Stand There and Watch Me Burn

The gentle ring of a tiny bell sounded as a plastic ball rolled across the metal floor of the living room. The small black kitten frisked after it, batting it with a paw and pouncing on it again. Nitrine giggled and pushed it with his toe it just beyond her reach. Six days had passed since his incident at the mountain, and with time and his brother's healing powers, his back wasn't giving him much grief. He flitted to the corner of the room where her water dish sat, scooping it up when he noticed that it was almost empty. "Play hard, Andrea," he chirped, "I'm going to go get you some fresh water."

He listened to the chime of the toy until he reached the stairs; he ascended and entered the kitchen, halting abruptly. "Reala!" The nightmaren general leaned nonchalantly on the kitchen counter, drinking out of the jug of milk. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Ran out of milk; too lazy to go and get more, so I'm borrowing yours." Reala smirked as Nitrine burned.

His eyes flashed blue, and his translucent crotch cannon appeared and armed itself. He growled, "Put it back and get out. You aren't welcome here."

His father only scoffed, "You're seriously going to chance blowing a hole through your wall over a jug of milk?"

"You wanna test me?"

"I don't think I'm going to even waste my energy." Reala turned to go, milk in hand, warping away as a white blast of fire emitted from Nitrine's cannon. Any part of the counter and drawers that did not get completely burnt away was scorched black; countertop plants crumpled to ashes, and a good portion of the wall had melted slightly.

The young maren gave an embittered snarl before the burning ceased and his irises browned; then, withdrawing his cannon, he cussed to himself anxiously. No way to avoid it. He would have to come clean, and if Lucent killed him...

He heard a boot on metal and a sharp gasp, and he turned to see his brother, back from collecting some lost shleep, staring at the destruction. Nitrine gulped and shakily blurted, "I was just coming in to get Andrea some water and I saw Reala drinking our milk and I told him to leave and he taunted me and that made me really mad and…"

Lucent floated ever so gingerly past him, taking the plastic dish from the other's hand, his gaze never breaking from the ruined counter. Totally wordless, he filled the bowl with water at the sink and left the kitchen, returning with a soft-covered book in his claws. Nitrine squeaked a hundred apologies as Lucent approached, the fire in his icy blue eyes visible through his golden blond mess of bangs. He hung his head guiltily to receive a rough tap on it with the book.

"Bad Nitrine."


	3. An Unexpected Visitor

She spotted him soon enough. "Hey, creeper, stop spying on me through the window and come inside."

The maren straightened up and went into the apartment through the front door. "Your blinds were _just_ open enough." The kitchen smelled heavenly sweet. Fresh muffins were arranged on a plate atop the counter. Cynthia was perched on a stool beside them, munching on one; Gastrodon eyed Nitrine with suspicion from the floor.

Shirona slipped another batch of the pastries into the oven and turned towards him. "Where have you been for the past week and a half?"

Nitrine settled on air beside Cynthia at the counter, helping himself to a muffin to stall. He had come to the apartment and peeked in through the window for a reason. He hadn't anticipated visitors. The Champion's presence was standing in the way of his premeditated revenge on his former boss. He answered simply, "Long story short, I kinda got into a fight."

"With whom?" Cynthia asked.

Mild burning. "I-It was a giant dragon thing, just flew right out of this big lake on a mountaintop—that's where the plothole spat me out—and it came out looking to kill something, and since I was the only one there…" His gaze fell, and he frowned at the counter.

Shirona strutted out of the kitchen to examine him carefully, looking him up and down as he sat still. "I'm calling bullcrap. Where are your scars and bruises? You can't have possibly curb-stomped a—"

The walls shook abruptly. Something down the hall cracked and was scraping heavily. Her three guests tailing, she made her way to the bathroom, halting at the doorway with wide eyes. Cynthia and Gastrodon both gasped in unison at the sight, the woman breathing, "Giratina…?"

The ghastly dragon's face was smashed against the wall opposite the mirror, out of which it was trying to squirm. Only one pair of the gold half-rings on its neck were visible; by extension, due to it being in its Origin Forme, two of the long, black streamers on its back were trying to pull its body further into the bathroom. The tips of its head plates scratched the wall as it opened its mouth to snarl.

Nitrine's face twisted into a grin of anticipation as he held its glower. He crooned, "Giratina's your name, eh? We were just talking about you."

Since Gastrodon was at the ready, her trainer barked, "Gastrodon, use—"

"Step aside." The maren's erect cannon shoved Cynthia out of the way, and he simultaneously kicked her water-type. "I have waited too long for this."

Shirona grabbed his shoulder and tried to pull him back, but he simply glanced at her from the corner of his eye; she was lost in his puzzling blue glare, those slitted pupils. The sound of Giratina forming a sphere of blue fire in its mouth spurred her into action. She willed open a plothole and shoved Cynthia and Gastrodon through as the nightmaren fired his translucent cannon. The boner blast collided with the fireball and resulted in a massive explosion that threw Nitrine backwards, through the door and into Jackle's bedroom. It fragmented restroom door, crumbled down the wall into the spare bedroom and washer and dryer, and caused the ceiling to shower bits of the upper apartment's floor. The blast left Giratina singed in several places on its face and neck; it shook off the dust and drywall and gave a challenging screech.

The trio appeared in the living room, near enough to the hallway entrance to see the damage. Nitrine, his newly-repaired hoodie in tatters, was covered in dirt and a few burns. He hacked a bit but quickly took on a fighting stance, and the toothy smile reformed on his face. Shirona hollered, "Don't you dare, Nitrine!"

Jackle's head rose from a plothole in the floor, having no need to inquire as he watched his nephew's cannon glow, ready to fire. Giratina likewise formed an aura sphere at the front of its mouth, but before either could release his attack, Jackle darted over and created another rip in reality, into which both projectile attacks disappeared harmlessly. The two belligerents roared acrimoniously.

"Get out of my way, Jackle! I want to finish what _he_ started!"

The cape-wearing maren grabbed the collar of younger's hoodie and shoved him through the open plothole. He tumbled through the black dimension, his sense of up and down completely scrambled, until he found himself on the floor of his own kitchen, having been launched out of the stove. He withdrew his cannon and got to his feet, the sting of his scar finally fading, eyes returning to normal. He glided down the stairs, across the pit and pillars, and found Lucent in the living area, not-nose buried in a book as per usual. He heard Nitrine enter the room and looked up, surprise coming across his face.

"I… got into another fight."


	4. Pause and Reflect

**A.K.A, the boring chapter. If I compared the fic as a whole to a Professor Layton adventure, this chapter would be Luke.  
**

Lying among the fragments of walls in the hallway, Gastrodon whimpered as Cynthia treated her burn with a Full Heal. Shirona and Jackle both cussed at the destruction of their apartment. The sea slug and the orange nightmaren had endeavored to shove Giratina back into the portal of the mirror, with the former weakening it with her attacks and the latter simply grabbing its face and trying to shove it back through with his strength. The dragon of legend eventually squirmed out backwards on its own, with Gastrodon translating its threat that it would return.

"But why, though?" Cynthia wondered. "Why would it choose to appear here, of all places?"

The water-type breathed deeply as the spray medicine numbed her wounds. "Well... while it was here, it raved a little about us ruining its home."

"So it came here to wreck our house as payback?" Shirona deduced. "But I don't understand; how could we have ruined its home? We haven't done anything to it."

Cynthia gazed into the bathroom thoughtfully, at the scraped walls, cracked tile floor, collapsed sink, and shattered mirror. She closed her eyes as she pondered. "During my research on Giratina in the recent past, I learned that whatever makes perfect sense here, doesn't apply in the Distortion World. There, gravity shifts inexplicably; objects, whole or in part, appear and disappear at random; and stuff like impossible staircases and upwards-flowing water exist. Giratina helps keep everything under control and in enough of an order so that it is all manageable.

"That being said, in order to be able to ruin the Distortion World, something impossible or nonsensical would have to be accomplished here in our world."

Gastrodon piped up, "But, when that does happen somehow, a plothole usually—oh! Giratina hates plotholes!"

"That seems to be the case." The Champion looked to her twin and the nightmare creature as she continued, "I'm not entirely sure what happens in the Distortion World whenever one occurs, but Giratina obviously knows something is off and gets pissed. My theory is that it came looking for you guys in order to kill you off and restore peace to its world. The house getting destroyed is just the result of it trying to attack while stuck in the bathroom mirror, which is too small for it to fit through."

Jackle crossed his invisible arms. "Well, I sure as hell am not going to just stop plotholing to appease it. If it comes back, I'm going to use its hide to patch up my bedroom."

This time it was Shirona who spoke. "Except... if Giratina dies, then nobody can keep the Distortion World from becoming too chaotic. Right, Cynthia? That could spell doom for the real world because nobody is managing the Distortion World."

Cynthia nodded. "That's right. I guess the only thing you guys can do is avoid reflective surfaces big enough for Giratina to fit through, or just plothole away if you encounter it."

"Where does Nitrine fit into all this?" Jackle wanted to know. "What was he doing here?"

Gastrodon recalled, "He said earlier that Giratina attacked him a week and a half ago..."

"From what he told us, it sounds like he was plotholed to the top of Mt. Coronet. That one...incident left an opening to the Distortion World there," her trainer pointed out. "Giratina must have felt threatened."

"And then it gave him blue eyes. Did anyone else see that?" Jackle was the only one to nod. Shirona went on, "Yeah, his eyes were bright blue, and when I tried to stop him... if looks could kill, I'd be dead five-hundred times over. Not like him at all. A nightmaren fighting the physical representation of antimatter—I think something happened during their encounter that changed him."

"It's entirely plausible, although only he and Giratina would know." Cynthia paused, staring again at the ravaged restroom. "My concern is if Nitrine decides to go after it with murderous intentions."

"I honestly am not too worried about that if Giratina just stays in the Distortion World. Assuming he isn't familiar with Spear Pillar, he more than likely can't warp there. And I don't think Giratina can freely enter the dream world like nightmarens can."

Jackle fumed, "He won't be able to kill anything after I get through wringing him out!"


	5. Face to Face With Myself

Nitrine floated back into his bedroom from outside four days later, towel-drying his hair and horns. Even if his shower was cut short by the especially intense stinging of his back scar, it still felt good to just immerse himself in cold water and wet himself down. Tossing the towel in a corner, he pulled a long-sleeved pajama shirt at random from his dresser and burrowed himself underneath the blankets of his bed. As he closed his eyes for his afternoon nap, his mind wandered to the progress he was making on his latest sketch, inspired by Andrea's ridiculous antics. The whole project was effectively busying his mind away from vengeful thinking, although Lucent also deserved credit. Indeed, for two days he would not let Nitrine leave a room without him, and he still asked for information on which part of the house Nitrine was headed to and why. He must have proven himself trustworthy if his scarf-wearing brother let him bathe without an escort.

After he fell into slumber, the closet door opened and a figure emerged, sliding his feet into Nitrine's boots before hovering noiselessly towards the inner sanctum. He could hear the jingling of the cat's ball and soft laughter, and he made a beeline for the stairs, for the kitchen. Cracking his knuckles, he ducked behind the counter to hide and inhaled a deep breath... "Aaaaargh!"

"Nitri?!" Bingo.

"S-so much blood!"

Lucent arrived quickly but came to an abrupt halt when he saw no one else in the kitchen. Nega-Nitrine sprang up and clouted him with all his strength on the back of the head, and the other landed on the floor with a quiet thud. Crouching beside his unconscious brother, he took one of his hands and began to remove its bladed glove. By the time he finished pulling the glove onto his right hand, his left was dripping with blood. Lucent had always admonished his brother to never touch his fingerknives—he was right to worry that this very thing would happen.

"Whatever," he muttered before digging around in a nearby drawer, finding a small towel and using it to wrap up his hand. That done, he made his way down to the living room. Andrea was on the couch grooming her fur unsuspectingly; he spotted a thick book on the floor and without hesitation began shredding the pages. If Lucent was going to deny him the satisfaction of revenge on all who deserved it, then Nega-Nitrine was not going allow him the satisfaction of finishing his reading material. Quite suddenly the air rushed out of his lungs as his better half tackled him against the wall, pinning his arms.

"What have you done with my brother?" Nitrine demanded. "If you hurt him, I swear I will _thrash you_!"

Nega-Nitrine brought his foot up and kicked him square in the abdomen, winding the brown-eyed maren and knocking him backwards. "Lame-trine. He should be just fine; I left him in the kitchen." He stretched the corners of his lips and bore his fangs in that nightmarish grin of his. "No promises that _Shirona_ will be so lucky." He warped away as the other dove for him, knowing that he would not follow; Lucent's well-being was of too much concern.

A quick glance at the ruined apartment from outside told him she wasn't at home. He dropped onto the ground below and burst open the door to her and Jackle's antique shop—excellent, she was managing the counter today. Seeing him rocketing across the shop, she dove out of the way, hearing the claws tear through the wall. He pounced on top of her with his arm drawn back to dice her but fell away with an agonized squeal when Shirona rammed the steel toe of her boot up his crotch. Free at last, she opened a plothole beneath her and disappeared into it, leaving Nega-Nitrine rolling on the ground, holding his genitals. "Little bitch..."

Once he recovered, he eased the figerknives off of his hand, resolving to not waste his time on this _human_ when he could be directing his energies on his much larger target. Exiting the shop, he took flight to try and gauge where Giratina might be. He could try to find the mountaintop lake, but he had never gotten a good look at where that mountain was located. It could be in the Swiss Alps for all he knew!

Oh, wait. The region was split in half down the middle by a range of small mounts, the tallest of which was snow-capped and surrounded by white fog. It made more sense, was undoubtedly certain, that the ghostly dragon would be found up there. Chuckling to himself with glee, he shot off to finish his mission.


	6. Release and Awaken

"Lucent…"

His forehead creased with confusion, blinking slowly as his technicolor hallucination melted away, and he took in the familiar grays of his metallic home. He was still in the kitchen, seated on the floor with Nitrine kneeling beside him. His eyes focused on his brother's distraught countenance as he asked him, "Are you with me now?"

"Y-Yeah. Are you okay? I heard you scream." Lucent rubbed the painful spot on the back of his head before curtly gripping his own hair with his bare fingers. "Where's my glove?"

"I heard _you_ scream," Nitrine replied. "You must've heard the other Nitrine." His brother appeared even more confused, and he explained, "As soon as I was done wetting down, I got ready for a nap. I couldn't tell whether you were actually calling for me or if it was just me dozing, but after a few minutes I decided to get up and check, and I saw another Nitrine in the living room!" Lucent stared dumbly, and the brown-eyed maren gave him a desperate gaze. "You've got to believe me! He had blue eyes like yours, and he was using your fingerknives to rip apart your book!"

The words caused the other to issue a low growl; sure enough, when he walked into the living room, he found the scraps of pages scattered on the ground beside the couch like confetti. A small, bloodied towel lay among the strips. Lucent lifted the cover of the book and contemplated it; he continued to rumble but did not speak for several long moments. Finally, he declared, "He needs to be stopped before he winds up hurting more than just people's property."

"Oh, no, Shirona!" Nitrine cried, "He said he was going to go after her next."

"Then we have to get moving." Lucent seemed prepared to warp away, but there was a pounding on the front door. He opened it. "Jackle."

Nitrine floated up and immediately wanted to know, "Is Shirona okay?"

Jackle nodded, answering, "I came to talk to you about her, actually. Says Nitrine tried to cut her up." He reached into his cape and gingerly pulled out the bladed glove. "He left this behind." Lucent took it and slid it onto his hand as his brother quickly explained about the other Nitrine. Their uncle listened intently and then remarked, "A separate, violent Nitrine… The girls think he is related to whatever happened between you and Giratina the first time you fought."

The scarfed maren's eyes widened in remembrance. "Nitrine, show me your back." Nitrine turned around and pulled the bottom of his shirt up, and Lucent and Jackle both winced. The blackness that had only been present at the edges of the skin had spread over the entire scar despite the scar's healing appearance.

Nitrine frowned. "I don't know why this happened… It might be because I warped away right as Giratina slashed at me. Maybe his claws were glowing and shadowy at that moment. I don't really know for sure. But he might be in danger, too."

"We think it's unlikely that he'll be able to give that dragon any trouble, so long as it stays home. Still, it would be bad news for the waking world if he managed to hunt it down…"

Lucent inquired, "Any ideas as to where this Nega-Nitrine might be?"

Jackle shook his head. "No, I thought he might've come back here."

"Something tells me," Nitrine mused, "that he's trying to find a way to get to Giratina—if he hasn't already."

* * *

Nega-Nitrine giggled as yet another of the six-legged monster's attacks opened a hole in the cobblestone walls of the castle, and he darted inside it, down the corridor. Giratina shoved its enormous head through and fired a huge orb of blue flame after him; knowing he would not outrun it, he warped away instead, appearing right behind his pursuer. He had already seen it happen a few times: the blue fireball would crash into a wall and burst, igniting any flammable materials; if it worked in his favor, it would blow another hole in the wall. "Nice work!" he called, winking at the dragon when it turned its head. "But you'll need to try harder than that if you want to catch me!" The creature spread its black, gaseous wings and took off after him.

The nightmaren lead Giratina on a wild chase through Nightmare, having more than a few close calls with those slashing talons, its fierce blue flames, the boulders it hurled with phantasmal power. Once or twice it vanished completely and reappeared in the maren's flight path, only for him to warp away a safe distance and taunt the beast again. Missed projectiles hit third-level marens, trees, cliffs; they created craters, wildfires, and landslides. Nega-Nitrine drilled downwards into a valley of oversize, lurid flowers and mushrooms and came to a halt above a sleeping Gillwing. Giratina soared overhead to avoid crashing and circled the area, waiting for its prey to make a move.

He kicked Gillwing's horn and took off again. The legless beast woke up immediately, noticing the foreign monster flying around his home, and also spread his wings. The gray Pokemon breathed a stream of blue-violet fire down at Nega-Nitrine, who warped out of the way to let Gillwing take the attack. The latter uttered a shrill cry as the heat scorched its face, but still he pressed onward towards his target. Giratina had already turned tail to continue its race to the smaller maren, but the other clamped onto it with a pair of jaws lined with sharp fangs and dragged it down to the ground to fight.

"Excellent." Nega-Nitrine beamed down as Gillwing began constricting his adversary with his tail. His fellow maren was making his revenge infinitely easier. His attention held rapt by the brawl, he was taken completely by surprise when he was tackled out of the sky by a certain nightmaren general.


	7. Ashes, Ashes

The three could see from Lucent's mount the distant chaos. Nitrine set out at top speed immediately, trailing the path of third-level marens in turmoil across Nightmare. He, his brother, and his uncle had to avoid black clouds of smoke as the landscape and the homes of many were consumed by blue fire. Up above Gillwing's valley, a disasteroid flew towards the ground at an angle.

Lucent squinted. "Looks like Reala's pissed."

"Great," Nitrine groaned as they approached him. "Reala!"

His father turned to the trio, blood running from his lips, and his eyes widened in confusion. He was speechless for a couple moments before spitting blood and demanding, "What the hell is going on here? Nitrine, you—"

Jackle interrupted him. "This one's ours; the other one's a Negatrine." He hurriedly elucidated the situation with the vengeful clone and the ghostly dragon to Reala, who fumed.

"So nobody cares if I murdered the other Nitrine for provoking that beast into breaking down my castle walls?"

Nitrine floated forward anxiously. "Giratina's here?" As an answer to his question, the dragon below them beat its wings frantically, shooting a shadowy orb from its mouth at the grounded Gillwing. Blood trickled from wounds on its body, its tail, its legs. "How did he get here?"

Lucent spoke urgently, "Reala, order Gillwing to stop his attack."

"Why would I do that?" The older maren gestured behind them to the disarray of the land. "Look at all the damage it's caused. On top of that, the massive hole it created on its way here is absorbing Nightmare!"

"Massive hole?" The trio echoed in unison before the brown-eyed maren was downed by a Negatrine in breakneck flight. The two crashed through technicolor dandelions onto the ground, skidding through the dirt, the former lying belly-up on the vibrating earth, the latter on top of him. Nitrine held off the other's hands with his own, trying to kick him away. His torso, arms, and legs were covered with bloodied claw marks; the majority of his face, his hair, and the shirt he had snatched from Nitrine's closet were blackened from being unable to dodge those disasteroids in time. He growled, "Asshole, you're ruining my clothes."

Negatrine retorted, "What do you care? Your boyfriend can make you more. Now take off your shirt so I can get outta here."

"Huh?"

"Gillwing is doing my dirty work for me, so I want to take my leave. I have no need to be here."

"First, I want to know how you got Giratina here! And about the massive hole Reala mentioned."

"You'll find all that out once you roll over and take off your—!" His words morphed into an intense howl of extraordinary hurt when Lucent's hands closed tight around his horns. He gave a tug, and Negatrine rolled away with tears forming at the corners of his eyes. Nitrine pounced on him from behind as his brother released the sensitive horns, pinning down his clone's arms and kneeling on his back. The other writhed and struggled, shouting bitterly, "That was a dirty move, Lucent!"

He ignored him, asking his beloved, "You okay?"

Nitrine gave him a quick nod before rumbling to the maren beneath him, "Start talking! How'd you get a wide-awake animal to Nightmare?"

"I'm not telling you SHIT!" The feeling of Lucent placing his hands on his horns again caused Negatrine to yelp in apprehension and change his tune. "Okay, okay! So I found the top of the mountain and dove into the swirly lake where he lives, except it's actually a portal to some other freaky dimension with less gravity. I floated around for a bit until he found me, and we started fighting. I paralooped one of his shadow-blobs and he tried to use a big whirlwind from his mouth to pull me close; it combined with the paraloop and caused a portal to open up. It was about a dozen miles away from Reala's castle."

"How do we close it?"

"Haven't a clue."

Nitrine and Lucent exchanged a worried glance before looking behind them at the sound of a guttural screech. Near the base of a rocky mount, they saw Gillwing banking away from a burning tree that lay flat on the ground. They caught a glimpse of Giratina's golden head-spikes as it dragged the tree by its roots to the mouth of what appeared to be a small cave. The legless nightmaren circled in the air nearby, unable to get to his cornered prey. Feeling Nitrine's loosened grip on his arms, Negatrine swung his arm back to knock the other off of him and darted away through the forest of odd plants. He whirled about as they realized he had escaped their grasp, halting to lay eyes on the scene that had them distracted. "Grr... I'll have to do it myself."

He thrust out his cannon and fired a huge, black ball at the advancing brothers, which exploded on impact into a cloud of thick gas. As he made his way towards Giratina's refuge, the pair choked on the thick, harsh fumes, their eyes smarting; they moved out of the cloud by flying straight up and pausing so that they could regain their vision. Nitrine quickly spotted his blue-eyed doppelganger and warped in his path, resulting in a collision. The former attempted to drag the other down, holding his arms, keeping the erect cannon pointed away from the mount and the burning tree.

Surveying the scene from the air, Jackle turned to look at Reala, who was soaring away from the scene. Pursuing him, evading panicked Gaos and shleep as he went, he demanded, "Where are YOU going?"

"What I should have done first thing: inform Master Wizeman of that giant portal that's sucking Nightmare into itself," Reala growled over his shoulder at him. "This is Wizeman's creation; I highly doubt he could fail to shut a trans-dimensional rift in a place he created."

Unexpectedly he was staring in Jackle's face, having soared straight into a plothole that brought him back. "Don't. That portal leads to where Giratina belongs. Call Gillwing off and get it through the portal. Once home, it will likely close the portal by itself."

To the orange nightmaren's frustration, Reala shook his head. The ground's movement had increased from a vibration to a strong quake now. Reala pointed Jackle's attention behind him again, to the source of the frightened third-levels. They could see vast trails of water, demolished landscape, and slow third-level marens being drawn up into a glowing rift in the sky. The general's tone was pressing: "That needs to be taken care of right away. I will handle Giratina later."

"By doing what, killing it? Without Giratina, the Distortion World is losing whatever stability it has and will wind up swallowing the human world, too!"

"Why would that matter to me?!" Negatrine shouted at his original, firing another gas bomb at him and Lucent.

As his brother paralooped the ammo away, Nitrine snarled back, "Not to you, but I have friends in the waking world. I'm not going to stand by and let you destroy their world just because you're pissed off."

"You wanted to get back at that monster since the day it opened the wound on your back! Let me do you a favor and take care of him for you."

"Revenge isn't worth it anymore, Negatrine! Look at what's happening around you!" He had the feeling that he knew exactly what his clone's plan was. As soon as he had killed off Giratina, Negatrine planned on going back to wherever he came from—Nitrine's back. Whatever happened to Nightmare, to the human world, to the Distortion Dimension, none of it mattered to him because Nitrine and everyone else would be the ones to take the fall.

The six-legged dragon's mountain was beginning to crumble from the top, and Gillwing rammed the tip of his spiked tail at the stoniest areas around the cave entrance. Lucent dove for the green-striped reptile nightmaren as the two Nitrines continued to brawl, the brown-eyed one's main concern being that a boner blast did not explosively connect with Giratina's blue-flame tree. There had to be some way to keep Negatrine out of the picture long enough to get the legendary beast to safety…

An attack during a warp let him come out; couldn't something similar force him back in?

Nitrine fired a series of gas bombs at him, warping to a different spot in the air each time to confuse Negatrine's aim. Blinded by the gas, he found his way out of the cloud backwards, floating out with caution. Nitrine assaulted him with a double paraloop, once to weaken and further confuse him, twice to follow him into the black hole. He felt electricity pulse through every muscle in his body, every neuron in his brain; he could not tell whether the scream he heard came from his mouth or his mind. Neither the sound of Gillwing's dying screech nor the sight of his brother being caved in registered in his paralyzed brain.


	8. Closing Thoughts

Hard, crumbling, some trembling thing was pressed against his side. Regaining cognizance, he grunted, rising up off the earth as a giant dandelion fell over beside him. The wind of the stampede of colorful third-level nightmarens up above caused a few seeds to float away. He glanced down at himself, realizing he was wearing the nice collared shirt that Negatrine had destroyed in his scuffle with Reala, as well as his boots. But his blue-eyed doppelganger was nowhere to be found in the vicinity. "Whew."

Nitrine then remembered the other half of his mission, and his attention went to the tiny cave at the bottom of the collapsing mountain; just as he arrived ready to toss aside the impeding boulders, Lucent had released a powerful burst of energy and loosened them all from within. He took Nitrine's arm and pointed to the back of the tiny cave. "He is being crushed by stalactites but wants to stay away from me. Maybe you can earn his trust."

After a moment of hesitation, the other darted into the cave to find Giratina attempting to shake the debris from its body. The yielding refuge was too small, and its attempts were futile. Its eyes locked with Nitrine's, and he could hear a menacing grumble as he made its way towards its wings. As he lifted off the smashing stalactites and broke them with his punches, Nitrine's words were fast, nervous: "Listen, I know we've gotten off to a bad start, and I know some of the other marens have tried to kill you; but if you stay here, you're going to die. Gillwing's gone—my brother killed him—so you can come out without fear and head back to the Distortion World. It's falling apart without you!" Once the last stone was off of its back, he floated into a tiny space between the back wall and Giratina's rump and gave a hard shove.

The gray dragon ambled forward, poking its head out with caution, but another nudge from Nitrine sent it bounding awkwardly over the remains of the cave-in, the extinguished tree of protection, and Gillwing's rapidly decomposing corpse. In the light of the outside, the nightmaren brothers could see the damage it took: muscle was visible near the knee joints of two legs and where its wing met its back; the golden half-rings on its neck and protrusions on the side of its head were scraped; various deep gashes and jaw marks littered its torso and tail. The boulders that had landed on its back did it no favors, as when it flapped its enormous wings, it did not travel far without needing to drop and rest.

Jackle soon joined his two nephews, a brow raised at the view of Giratina safely outside the cave. Opening up an expansive plothole in the ground, he remarked, "I'll be impressed later. Reala's gone off to go alert Wizeman of the giant hole. Giratina, step in here, and I will take you right to the entrance." He dove into the dark portal himself first. The monster did not lift a paw right away, instead stretching its wings charily, until Nitrine and Lucent both pushed from the rear and made it to take that first step. The forceful suction of plotspace startled it, and it tried to resist, but with two front paws in the hole, there was no use. Lucent and Nitrine held onto the gold bands on its rearmost legs as they followed it through.

Just as Jackle had said, the plothole opened up in the current of Night Dimension matter that was being absorbed into the rift in the sky, so that Giratina need not tire its wings by flying all that distance there. Its body glowed and changed form as it entered the rift, and by the time it and the maren trio arrived in the Distortion World, it was no longer a six-legged beast. Its body was longer and more serpentine; the twins gripped what was no longer a leg but a spiked protrusion on the side of its body, one of six. Its wings had become thick and finger-like, ending in red claws, and the gold, sharp-edged plates on its head gave it a new shape.

When he released the leg-spine, Nitrine flailed his limbs and groped for his brother. "I feel so much more lightweight here!" he exclaimed, his heart thumping, unsure of whether to feel frightened or exhilarated. It took infinitely less strength to move a certain distance when in flight; Lucent and Nitrine found that out when they tried to meet up with Jackle in the air and missed him several times. Once they caught up to him, they held onto each other's shoulders and watched as Giratina went to work, purging its world of Nightmare matter by rounding everything up in whirlwinds formed by its mouth. They were not too late to see liquified foliage turn to daggers of glass or chunks of rock morph into tiny winged bats. It sucked in all sorts of dream debris and third-levels into its tornadoes and reversed the flow to shove them back into Nightmare, traveling long distances across its home and repeating the process until, satisfied at last, it used the same winds to twist the odd trans-dimensional portal out of existence.

Its work completed, it lay down inside the horizontal tower of a building that floated half-open to the world, heaving a great sigh before gingerly curling its body to lick its wounds. It breathed a light stream of its fire over them, the heat cauterizing the injuries. The trio watched wordlessly until the dragon turned its head towards them and grunted. Jackle was the first to speak: "So, is that it, then? The distortion is not going to threaten to swallow up the human world anymore?"

Giratina gave a single nod, bowing its head again to heal. Lucent floated forward ever so slowly with his brother's hand in his own. "Giratina, Nitrine has this huge black scar that you gave him, and—"

"Negatrine came out of me through there," the brown-eyed nightmaren chimed in, and he finished, "Is there anything you could do about it, maybe?" He slowly removed his ripped shirt and pajama top to reveal the wound. The gray reptile drew its head close and gnawed at the wound, drawing blood and a holler from Nitrine. He gripped his brother tightly and sobbed into the soft fabric of his clothes as Giratina licked and chewed and breathed fire over it. As Lucent's hands began to tingle in his gloves, Nitri loosened his grip, the pain just slightly more tolerable. Looking over his shoulder at Giratina, he tearfully acknowledged, "Th-thank you… and I-I'm sorry… if I hurt you."

In an unforeseen move, it closed its jaws around Nitrine's shirtless figure and took to the air, carrying both brothers and forcing Jackle to rush along behind. They traveled quite some distance before it halted at a curvy side walk that extended from another glowing portal, and it set the two marens down gently. Using its back streamers it made an "after you" gesture at the portal for them, and Nitrine couldn't help smiling. "So we're on good terms!" Giratina winked one red eye at him and gave a nod to Lucent in thanks, which he returned. The orange nightmaren waited a second for a show of gratitude, but he only received a glare in the end.

"Oh, no thanks for me because I can plothole?"

That unwavering scowl gave a clear answer of _You know it_. Huffing a breath, Jackle led the way through the portal back to the waking dimension.

They were launched out of the swirling lake at the top of the mountain into frigid air. The pillars, shaped into pillars by time and space, stood nearly invisible against their black surroundings in the darkness of night. Nitrine hastily pulled on his pajama shirt and embraced Lucent for warmth, muttering, "Something tells me we—no,_ I'm_ going to be in big trouble with _a lot_ of nightmarens when we go home." Slightly louder, he called, "Say, Jackle~"

His uncle only suggested flatly, "Something tells me that you are going to be in big trouble with a couple of plothole pimps if you ask to stay the night."

Nitrine whined a bit, teeth clacking briefly in the cold. "Can w-we stay the night anyway? I-I would much rather just have you and Shirona on my back for-right now instead of every maren in existence."

Lucent gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "You won't be able to avoid them forever."

"Just a night, so I can recuperate. I'll deal with everything in stride."

Somewhat reluctantly, Jackle opened a plothole in midair. "Let's go, then. I will talk to Shirona and see what she thinks."

"Mention how we saved the world. All three of them. Maybe that will help convince her." Nitrine chuckled.


End file.
